Birds of Prey
by burning fireflies
Summary: Years ago, they knew each other well – now, she is an elusive thief and he is the agent assigned to capture her. It's a deadly game of hide and seek that spells disaster for them both. In a world of lies, deceit and ulterior motives, who can you trust? "I will make you sing like a bird." "You'll have to catch me first, Li."
1. intro

**BIRDS OF PREY**

_Years ago, they knew each other well – now, she is an elusive thief and he is the agent assigned to capture her. It's a deadly game of hide and seek that spells disaster for them both. In a world of lies, deceit and ulterior motives, who can you trust? "I will make you sing like a bird, Nightingale." "You'll have to catch me first, Li."_

_-_x-

"You're sure this is her?"

A man – tall, a wiry but solid build, brown hair and eyes – stood facing another, who had just handed him a blurry, blown-up photograph of a barely discernible face: all that could be made out was a pair of dark sunglasses and a head of blonde hair.

"Yes," replied the second man, even taller than the first, with jet hair that offset his pale skin. His eyes were dark and piercing behind thin, wire-rimmed glasses. "Tech department just got around to detailed analyzing of the security footage from the bank she hit last year in Chicago. No one noticed the frame until now – it's a two-millisecond shot from just after tech managed to undo her programming on the cameras."

The first man remained silent, eyes grazing the glossy photograph in his hands. The face inside it looked up at him, her gaze somehow seeming to penetrate through the dark sunglasses like a taunt.

"Li," started the second man with an air of impatience, "I know you're new to this case, and I don't mean to break your confidence… but you need to know."

Li looked up from the photograph with an air of reluctance.

"It's been three years since this case was opened and we're practically nowhere closer to catching her. They chose you to replace Bertram because you're young, you're promising, and, frankly, because you're a longshot. People are losing faith in the system. Every one of her heists pushes FBI reputation lower down. You are the radical solution that they have proposed and I urge you, Li, to take it seriously. There's a lot more riding on this than your own promotion, and you'd do well do keep that in mind."

An eerie stillness swirled for the span of a few seconds as each man stared carefully into the face of the other. Breaking a silence that seemed much longer than it was, Li spoke.

"Thank you for your input, Hiiragizawa, but I find it to be relatively unnecessary. To start, I know exactly what I'm going into, so forgive me if I find your remarks to be a tad impolite. And just so you are aware, I am your equal, not your inferior, which _you'd_ do well to _keep in mind_."

The second man, Hiiragizawa, widened his eyes momentarily before he broke into an unexpected smile and gave a short burst of laughter.

"Indeed, Li. I retract my earlier insolence, and I'm sorry that we had to start off that way." He extended a hand to a now equally surprised Li, the same smile still on his face. "Welcome to the team."

-x-

'_NIGHTINGALE STRIKES ART DEALER,' _read the headline of a newspaper held by a young woman on a bench. She was sitting in the park, dark sunglasses perched on a faintly freckled nose and blonde hair pulled up into a sleek ponytail. Her green eyes, though rendered unseen by the lenses of her wayfarers, flicked across smaller articles inside the newspaper – house fires, political affairs, sports victories. A commentary on a set of valuable jewels appearing in a museum exhibit sat tucked against the centre fold of the newspaper, a black-and-white image of a fist-sized, pear-cut diamond to its right. Her roaming eyes paused on this image, stopped for a fraction of a breath to consider, and then moved onwards to the next article.

After some time she folded newspaper shut and she stood, rolling up the paper and tucking it under her arm as she strode toward the busy street. The city hummed around her, cars going past like pieces of one great river, tires hitting the asphalt with the rushing sound of water. She crossed several intersections before she reached a building of red brick and black window frames, with rusted emergency staircases crisscrossing the side walls. She lived here; the fourth window from the left, six floors up, belonged to her, the small apartment with its white blinds drawn loosely shut.

When she reached the room she set the newspaper on an empty table and carefully tore the front page article out, the tail of the _N _on _NIGHTINGALE_ coming off. Holding this, she strode into her bedroom and stood at the doorway, quietly observing.

The wall was covered in newspaper clippings, magazine articles, still-shots from news broadcasts. Pages overlapped and edges were tattered, older things worn and yellowed by time.

_MUSEUM'S PRIZE GONE MISSING_

_MYSTERIOUS THIEF STEALS $250K_

_DETECTIVES REACH DEAD END_

The young woman stood still, quietly admiring the wall, eyes roaming lazily. Finally, she strode forward and took two tacks from a small cluster stuck into the upper left corner of the wall, using them to pin the new article in place. The addition seemed almost unremarkable compared to the hundred-odd pages tacked to the wall, headlines cutting each other off like angry politicians vying for the last word. The wall was plastered with years of history, with the faded chronicles of her own timeline of crime.

A mobile phone buzzed from the other room and she was forced out of her reverie. She strode from the room quickly, allowing herself only a small smile and a few whispered words.

"Ready or not, here I come."

-x-

**A/N: new story! please do review, as it helps the author tons: motivation, suggestions, etc...**


	2. old friends, old enemies

**BIRDS OF PREY**

_Years ago, they knew each other well – now, she is an elusive thief and he is the agent assigned to capture her. It's a deadly game of hide and seek that spells disaster for them both. In a world of lies, deceit and ulterior motives, who can you trust? "I will make you sing like a bird, Nightingale." "You'll have to catch me first, Li."_

_-_x-

The phone rang shrilly, jerking a tired Syaoran Li out of his trance. It was very, very late and the bureau was quiet, the office nearly empty, and when he picked up the phone he tried and failed to keep his voice free from bored and listening ears.

"FBI headquarters, this is Li."

"Hello, Mr. Li."

A soft soprano voice buzzed from the other line. Something about the way she spoke – eerie, calm, yet as if waiting to pounce – raised hairs and red-hot alarm on the back of Syaoran's neck.

"Can I help you?"

"Oh, yes, thank you for asking."

"With what, may I ask?"

"Something that deeply concerns you."

"Such as?"

The caller was clipped, cordial, answered in a way that forced him to ask all the questions. This person – something about her was making his instincts scream _dangerous._

"Well, you see, Mr. Li, a truly rare spectacle has recently come to our city."

"Who?"

A silvery laugh bloomed from the other end of the line. "Oh, not a person. I mean to call your attention to the museum's temporary exhibit."

"How did you get this number?"

With the abruptness of being dropped into an ice bath, protocol switched on. He turned on his computer to trace the call – why hadn't he done it earlier? His first reaction should have been diagnostics.

"That's none of your concern, Mr. Li. In fact, I would say that this museum should be your only concern – especially for today."

"Miss, is this a bomb threat?"

Another laugh. "Oh no. Nothing as mundane as that would make me call you. I don't know about you, but I'm not one for bang-ups and fireworks. No, this will be far more entertaining."

"You think bombs are mundane?"

A third laugh, but softer this time – less scornful. "I like the look of you. I have high hopes; you're nothing like the last one."

"What is this all about?"

"Find out for yourself, Mr. Li."

The other end disconnected with a soft _click_. But all those questions had just been for stall – time to allow the call to be traced. It had shown up on the map as a payphone a few streets from the bureau.

He opened his computer browser and typed "washington museum new exhibit" into the search engine, his fingers forcibly steady.

_Renowned Diamond Exhibit comes to Washington_, the screen spat back at him. He clicked and skimmed the article, and then with forced calm, picked up his phone and dialed.

"Hello?"

"Hiiragizawa. I know where Nightingale is going to be."

-x-

It was nearly midnight. The opening day of the exhibit had gone well. All day, people had gawked at the gems, children with their faces pressed against the glass, women with longing eyes. Now, under a veil of darkness, a lithe blonde woman walked alone in the building. No red light blinked beside any of the security cameras.

She walked with light footsteps that were barely audible. The museum was empty and darkened. As she strode down a long hallway, diamonds glittering from the far end of the room that the hallway led into, piercing green eyes roamed her surroundings from beneath sunglasses. Everything was silent, still – poised for success. As with her previous heists, everything had been meticulously studied, planned, and carried out: all would go perfectly. This was her norm.

She reached the end of the corridor and stepped into a room with high ceilings, carpeted in black with glass cases against three walls. A large window faced the hallway, the dim light streaming in from outside bouncing off the reflective surfaces. Standalone cases littered the room in a clearly laid out path for the viewer. In the centre of the room, a fist-sized diamond glittered inside a thick glass case, sectioned off with heavy black velvet rope on polished metal posts. The pear-cut gem was coloured a smoky brown, a small metal plaque beneath it explaining its origins and history. She kept her eyes trained on this prize as she stepped over the rope and pulled a variety of metal instruments from a bag tied to her hip, setting them down on top of the glass.

The woman worked for a quarter hour, thin fingers gripping the metal picks deftly. Eventually, she managed to pry the case open and slip a gloved hand inside. She lifted the diamond from its case and slid it into a black cloth pouch.

Suddenly, a siren pierced the relative silence outside. The woman looked up in alarm, heartbeat racing – but after a moment, her breathing steadied. This was a city, no doubt full of crime; that siren was not for her. She'd never yet been spotted at or around a crimes scene as of yet, so how could she be caught red-handed? Nevertheless, she worked with slight unease and prickled caution to restore the glass case to its former state.

Minutes later, as she was finishing, there came faint noises from the end of the corridor. As it was, she had only noticed them due to the lack of noise from the window – they were faint, but… were they coming from inside the museum?

A loud _bang_ from the end of the hallway made her jump and drop the diamond in her left hand. With a stifled gasp she caught the bag by its corner, the diamond tumbling out onto the carpet. Hurriedly, she picked it up and stuffed it back in.

_Impossible!_

Her heart beat against her chest like a marathon runner's. There was no mistaking the sound: someone else was inside the building. But how many, and who? She glanced towards the window; if she smashed it, alarms she hadn't bothered to disable would likely go off. She had planned to leave this heist the same way she had left every other: out the front door. On the other hand, would she have enough time to bypass the alarm?

She made her decision in a half-second and strode to the window, pulling one of the odd metal instruments from her hip and sliding it along the inside of the windowframe. She had to try. Footsteps echoed from the hallway and she knew they were near the entrance to the corridor.

_But how could they have known…?!_

She had to fight to keep her fingers steady as she pulled another metal instrument from her bag. There was still a chance they did not know she was in the room, there was still a chance she would not get caught, there was still time…

"It's this room!"

A faraway voice, powerful and masculine, echoed from the end of the corridor. Her finger slipped and the thin metal wire she had been holding fell into a crevice between the glass of the window and the metal of the frame.

She cursed out loud and, increasingly aware of the echoing footsteps, pulled the safety pin she wore as an earring out of her ear and used it to pull the wire back out, slipping it into her hip pouch and putting her earring back in. Quickly, she scanned the room before her.

_Leave no traces…_

She turned and glanced at the window.

_Well, that can't be helped,_ she thought, grimacing.

She swung from her back the small black pack she carried, unzipping it and pulling out a sturdy-looking black rope and a small pistol. She attached one end of the rope securely to the windowframe, giving several sharp tugs, and then took a deep breath. Pressing the barrel of the pistol against the glass, she fired a single shot that resounded loudly and sent several jagged cracks along the glass. A sharp, high-pitched screech of an alarm immediately went off, echoing from outside the hallway, mingling with voices that increased with volume as they drew closer. Using the outside of her left forearm, she swung and the pieces of glass flew out the window and shattered on the pavement below.

From the opposite end of the room, a clatter of footsteps grew suddenly quiet as they became muffled by the carpet.

"Stop where you are!"

A man had run into the room, one with a gruff voice and a tall, wiry build. As he pulled his gun from its holster and aimed it at the woman, time seemed to slow down: in the next few seconds, several things happened.

The woman turned to the window with her pistol pointed straight out. She was standing on the frame, rope attached to a harness around her waist, ready to jump. But as she looked up, recognition snapped across her face with such abruptness that one might think she had been slapped.

"Syaoran?"

The hand that held the pistol faltered as her lips parted, and then flew back up with resolve as her face hardened into a snarl. She glanced up at the ceiling and aimed her pistol, firing a shot at the sprinkler above the window. Water burst from the ceiling, spattering down unrelentingly.

From across the room, five others ran in from the corridor just as the first man fired his own gun. The bullets went sailing over the woman's shoulder as she bent her knees and kicked back, sailing out the window on the rope. He swore loudly and the six men raced across the room to the window. It was, however, clearly too late. As they leaned out the window and gazed at the ground below, all that remained was the black rope and a mess of broken glass.

The man to the immediate right of Syaoran Li pulled him forcefully from the window by the shoulder, and Li shouted in protest. The second man, with close-cropped black hair and a fierce glare, addressed him roughly.

"She said your name, Li."

Li's mouth tightened and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

"Yes," he spat back, teeth gritted.

"Who the hell was she?"

Syaoran took a deep breath and slid his gun back into his holster before he spoke.

"That was Sakura Kinomoto."

Several faces jerked with shock. The tallest man – Hiiragizawa, from that previous encounter – was the first to regain composure and speak.

"Surely not the one I'm thinking of?"

Li turned back to the window and stared out at the night sky as he replied.

"Yes, it's her. Seems she's decided to come back."

Behind him, the five men glanced at each other with shock in their eyes.

-x-

**A/N:**** review, please. **


	3. the selling of the soul

**BIRDS OF PREY**

_Years ago, they knew each other well – now, she is an elusive thief and he is the agent assigned to catching her. It's a deadly game of hide and seek that spells disaster for them both. In a world of lies, deceit and ulterior motives, who can you trust? "I will make you sing like a bird, Nightingale." "You'll have to catch me first, Li."_

_-_x-

_Six years prior_

"Come on, Kinomoto, is that the best you can do?"

A jeering voice came from around the corner, followed by a handsome man wearing a taunting smile. A young woman standing at a shooting range turned and shot him a glare through her safety glasses. She turned back around and eyed her mark with displeasure, a bullet barely siting within the target's third ring.

"You distracted me," she replied loftily, lifting the rifle back up, pressing the butt against her shoulder and peering through the sight.

"Don't do that with your elbow. Relax and don't scrunch your arm in so much."

"You do it, then, if you're such an expert," she grumbled back quietly. Suddenly, there was a firm chest pressed against her back and warm hands gently prying her arms loose.

"Let your arm sit more naturally. Even if it shakes a bit now, you'll develop the arm strength as you go."

He pressed himself against her and shifted their bodies to the left.

"Angle your body to the target, not just your shoulders."

His hand slipped down from shoulder to hip as he gently guided her stance.

"Okay. Now breathe slowly, and fire on the exhale." He slipped his other hand to her hip and stayed there while she inhaled and exhaled steadily.

_Bang._

She pulled the trigger and when she blinked after the recoil, a bullet sat lodged half an inch from the dead centre of the target. Sakura took a deep breath, suddenly more aware of the man standing against her than she had been before. As she inhaled slowly to calm herself, his chest shook against her back with laughter.

"If you're going to have this reaction every time you shoot, maybe you should learn to fire between heartbeats."

"Shut up, _Li_," she snarled, wrenching herself from the arms he had been snaking around her waist.

"You wound me," he called after her.

"If you keep this shit up, I _will_ wound you," she seethed back as she stalked away from the shooting range.

"No need, you're already breaking my heart," he called back, having to yell due to the distance.

She flipped her middle finger at him just as she rounded the corner.

_Present day_

"Sakura Kinomoto?"

"Yes, I assure you it was her."

Syaoran Li stood facing a grey-haired man across a handsome mahogany desk. The older man removed his glasses and passed a hand across his own lined face.

"Li, I know this has all been very tough on you, but it's been five years –"

"Six," interjected Syaoran.

"– six years," continued the man with a sigh. "I thought you had gotten over this, but it appears otherwise. Now, I know it's been a while but I can set you up with the therapist again, if you –"

"Sir, I'm not a lunatic and there's no need to treat me like one. I assure you –"

"Kinomoto is dead, Li, and you need to accept that fact."

"People fake their deaths all the time, it's –"

"Enough." The older man's voice rang out, clear and booming. "Li, I know this has been hard on you but I will not tolerate such behaviour from you any longer."

"She said my name, sir. Ask any of the other guys; they'll confirm it for you."

The man's face took on a sudden change, jaw unclenching and eyes softening: pity.

"Li, it's more than likely that this woman – a highly trained criminal – planned that all out. She –"

"Highly trained? Just like an FBI academy graduate? Sir, all the signs –"

"Show you just what you want to see," interjected the man once again, reverting to his former tone of finality. "Li, I'm very sorry about how hard this has been for you." His face softened again as he continued. "If this is too much, I –"

"No." Syaoran cut him off firmly. "No. Sir, I'm sorry for the trouble, I – I was stretching a hunch that obviously can't be true. I'm sorry for my insolence."

The other man opened his mouth to reply, but Li had already turned and left the room.

-x-

"What did he say?" A heavily built man with dark, bristly hair addressed Syaoran as he strode back to his desk.

"He doesn't believe me."

The man glanced sideways, making eye contact with another shorter man in blue.

"And… and do you still..."

Syaoran glanced up at the careful faces that watched him, at the cautious eyes and hesitant postures.

"No," he said, impassive. "It was a stupid hunch. Nightingale's probably just messing with me, getting me to play right into her trap."

It was as if the room itself had breathed a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, that's what we were thinking too," replied the black-haired man. "Glad you sorted that out," he quipped, clapping a hand on Li's shoulder as he passed.

The other men settled into their desks, but a jet-haired figure strode over to Li's cubicle.

"You really don't believe it?"

"No."

"Not at all?"

"What are you asking, Hiiragizawa?" Li turned from his chair and eyed him warily.

"I don't know," he replied calmly. "I just… I thought your theory had a lot of merit. I knew Kinomoto fairly well, and it all just seems to fit. It makes more sense than any other theory, at least."

Li raised an eyebrow.

"You knew her?"

"She was very close to a good friend of mine," was all Hiragizawa said in response. "What about you?"

"She was my partner."

"You were married?" asked Hiiragizawa, clearly taken aback.

"My training partner," said Li.

"But you didn't have anything with her?"

"No," replied Li, impassive. "That's against the rules, you know."

There was a long silence.

"Li, I really think you're right. I'm sure that was Kinomoto."

"And?" replied Li.

"And if she was your training partner, then I'm sure… you saw it too. That was her."

Li said nothing.

"If you were planning on investigating that on your own, though, I'm afraid you don't have a chance. Minelli didn't believe you about Kinomoto, but I don't think he believes you've changed your mind either."

"What's your point?"

"He's going to be watching you, and if he sees that you're double-crossing him, he's going to pull you off."

"So what do you propose instead?"

Hiiragizawa blinked, surprised.

"I know what you're saying, but there is no choice here. Frankly, I think catching Nightingale is worth a little more than keeping this plaque on my desk," said Li, pointing to a gold nameplate that read _Syaoran Li, Department Head._

"Actually, there is," he replied, straightening and folding his arms over his chest. "Redirect whatever you needed to investigate to me until Minelli gets off your back."

Li eyed him carefully with an even, calculating gaze.

"What do you want?"

"What?"

His stare remained unchanging.

"There's a reason you're offering. What do you want in return?"

Hiiragizawa gave a dry laugh.

"Of course – nothing less from you, Li. What I want…" his eyes narrowed a fraction, barely noticeable. "A favour, to be saved for a later time."

There was a few second's pause.

"Deal," replied Li.

-x-

**sorry for the long wait, I was very busy for a while. review, please!**


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